recently I've been focusing more on composition and colour in my concepts and sketches and I would love some critiques and feedback on this one. Of course not limited to above focuses and any feedback on design, mood etc. is welcome.
The idea here was some sort of chain of collectors which takes the recently fallen through a process on their way to death (cheesy - yes maybe a bit!), where this one has the role of collecting skulls for processing.
Was thinking of doing some sort of set of these characters and will post more of them along the way.
Heya,
Got a few things to talk about I guess. I'm doing this at a monitor that hasn't been calibrated properly for painting, so hopefully it is reading values and colour relatively accurately.
The general colour and comp is pretty solid. The red/orange vs blue/purple always is a good contrast. Perhaps you could play more with the transition between the temperatures and get a good mix going. I would also play with the shape and value design of your background smoke, so it really is a driving factor in the composition. You do have a general left to right diagonal movement happening which is dynamic but some of the dark vs light forms break this and could be designed with much more deliberate throught to the impact on the overall comp.
Now this may be my monitor but I think you need to bring up some of the dark value in the figure so it isn't so contrasty. *EDIT ok so it's not as bad as I thought seeing this on a decent monitor, but it could still probably do with a bit of value tweaking and lighting refinement on the interior figure. Also, I'd recommend putting more effort into the face area. People will be drawn to this as a focal point and it's a black hole, which is a little bit of a cop out. The hair in places is too blurred, like the rear arm.
I find the anatomy a little confusing in places. I can't tell what his legs are doing, or if he has any. The twist of his lower half seems odd given his very straight torso. That back arm isn't foreshortened correctly, thus losing depth and might be a bit too indistinct. Some of the volumes of the figure don't wrap around well, like the lit side of his torso armour and the blurred out bit of his chest.
Give us a bit more of interest to look at in terms of the costume and character design. Would we know this is a reaper that collects and processes skulls if you hadn't had told us? My guess is not really. If he is a processor, wouldn't he have tools and implements to help him do his job? What would these be? Wouldn't he have something to hold them all in? What are those random looking forms on his back? I think if you think about his function and design accordingly, getting the idea of your concept across will be more successful. The lower half especially is really undefined. Not everything has to be defined, but anything that adds to our understanding of the character can help. Maybe he is standing on a cliche'd heap of skulls, or the headless bodies of the reaped, or maybe in a circle of skulls, with one missing (the one in his hand). Small touches with a bit of thought can add a lot of narrative.
You're really right about the narrative, and I remember you mentioning it on another piece I did. And I realize that I have to develop some sort of system, because I tend to often loose myself in the mood of a painting and fill the narrative gaps in my mind the longer I spend on it. (I should probably tattoo 'Narrative' on my forehead..)
As for the anatomy I know I have a lot of studying ahead of me, and you had a really good point on him lacking a curve in his torso, breaking the flow which didn't occur to me.
So back to the sketchbook on this one too then, not sure if I can just paintover or if I'll just rework it completely - but I'll post some updates here along the way, if that's cool?
Oh and by the way on the monitor aspect of things, the difference is obvious on my laptop even though it's calibrated but I'm sitting on a pretty decent screen. So my question is should I go for what looks good on a perhaps lower-end or uncalibrated screen, or just trust my monitor? In music you always want to balance a mix after both quality speakers and a general car stereo - where most people listen to it. I have no idea if this applies to digital art.
Narrative is a deceptively hard one. Or should that be deceptively simple? You can kind of tack on objects and things afterwards, but it probably does pay to at least think about it even from the conceptual phase, as it can dictate design choices and composition etc.
Normally I tell people back to the sketchbook, or at least do some more thumbs before continuing. In your case, I think you might have a base you can just tweak. One thing I sometimes do, is put the entire image at a low opacity and then just sketch over top with line to play with different ideas (like onion sheeting for animation) That way you might stumble on ideas and still be able to keep some guts of the painting, or use them at least. But yeah, going back to drawing board can work too.
Totally post updates. I can't guarantee I will be on them immediately but will check in if I see this thread update.
About the screen, it's not really like music where there are certain environments you can predict people will be listening to it in...so cars...clubs etc. I used to produce for a few years so I totally hear you about balancing out your mix :) The way I handle stuff is basically if I'm satisfied the image looks good on a really well calibrated monitor with correct colour space setup, I can be reasonably certain that things will look as good as they can on whatever screen. There are soo many devices around that it would be impossible to do a general mix-down for the bad ones. Things change if you are targeting specific devices or formats, but for personal stuff I tend to just keep it as high quality and accurate to suit myself.
